Second Chances
by EpicnessAndThenSome
Summary: S.H.I.E.L.D. won, and HYDRA fell. Now Grant Ward is a prisoner on the bus, and he wants nothing more or less than one more chance. *post-finale (more or less)* SkyeWard
1. Talk

**AN: So this is my second Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fic. My previous story, Come Hell or High Water got a lot of positive feedback, so I decided to write another! I'm hoping to update at least once a week, but I just started two jobs so bear with me! Reviews help get me in the writing zone, of course. Anyways, enjoy Chapter One, _Talk_.**

***I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., unfortunately***

Grant Ward looked up at the sound of the cell door opening, but quickly returned his gaze to the grey steel table when he saw that his visitor was the eldest female member of the team.

"I'll talk" he sighed as she approached.

"Really? That easy?" Melinda replied. "I'll admit, I'm disappointed. I thought you'd be more fun than this." She sat down in the chair across from him.

"You already had your fun, back at Cybertek" he answered with a glare. Melinda nodded and smirked. She was about to respond, but Ward cut her off before she had the chance. "So, like I said, I'll talk. But not to you. I'm only going to talk to Skye."

"I don't think you're in any position to be making demands, Ward. Besides, you'll talk to me regardless."

"Maybe so, but you know the training I went through. You'll get information from me, sure. But it won't be the right information. That, you're only gonna get if I give it willingly."

Melinda pursed her lips and afforded Ward one last glare before stalking out of the room.

Coulson had been watching the encounter in the adjoining room and met May out in the hallway. Wordlessly, he nodded his head towards the bathroom door before setting off to grab a cup of coffee from the kitchen. Melinda sighed and went over to knock on the door.

"It's me" she called.

"Come in" Skye replied over the sound of running water. It had become standard practice on the bus to let members of the same sex in the bathroom while one was showering, since there was a curtain and everything. May stepped into the steam filled room and stood next to the cloth barrier.

"Ward said he'll talk."

"Good. It's the least he can do, although I'm surprised he gave up so easy…"

"He didn't" May sighed, "He says he'll only talk to you."

Skye was silent for a moment. May heard her set down the shampoo bottle and Skye placed a hand on the wall for support.

"Did you tell him no?"

"I tried. But he argued, rightly, that we have no way of verifying that he tells the truth, let alone the whole truth, if we force him."

"I'm not a S.H.I.E.L.D. interrogator, May."

"No one is anymore, Skye! But Coulson's the boss now and if he says that you're an interrogator, then that's what you are. So finish your shower, put on your big girl panties, and do your job." With that, May left the room, leaving no audience for Skye's groan of frustration a moment later.

Skye quickly finished her shower, dried off, and then took May's advice- literally. She dressed in a brand new bra and pantie set; Ward wouldn't be seeing the underwear, of course, but the bra was a triple push up and Skye planned to use all assets at her disposal. Besides, as any girl would attest, new undies always inspire confidence, and Skye needed all the confidence she could get. On top of the purple lace ensemble, she wore a pair of spandex shorts and a low cut green tank top. Both were chosen strategically- before he'd stabbed her in the back, Skye had noticed an appreciative look in Ward's eye whenever she'd worn either piece. Finally, she pulled her still-damp hair into a ponytail, applied a bit of makeup, squared her shoulders and marched into the cell where Ward was waiting. It wasn't until she was comfortably seated opposite him that she graced him with her gaze.

He was staring at her. The evil she had expected to see was absent; all she could see sitting in front of her was Grant, her S.O. Her friend. She drew in a breath, hardened her heart, and began.

"You said you would talk. Better get started, before we see just how well you taught me to throw a punch."

"I love you" the specialist blurted.

"We're on S.H.I.E.L.D. time here, Gr- Ward" she told him forcefully, despite the hundreds of butterflies that had chosen that moment to congregate in her stomach. "We want HYDRA intel, not personal declarations."

"And I'll give you HYDRA intel. All of it. As soon as you give me five minutes."

Skye clenched her jaw, leaned back in her chair, and crossed her arms. "You've got two."

"I love you, Skye" Ward began as he leaned forward. "When I first met you, you were an annoying kid who was in my way, but even then I felt a spark. And then you joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and you _became_ my way. You became the light in my darkness. By the time that encrypted message came through, I was already having some doubts about HYDRA, but I didn't have time to make up my mind before Garrett called me and I had to decide then and there. I made the wrong choice, and I've been regretting it ever since. I know you must hate me right now, but it's nowhere near as much as I hate myself for hurting you; for hurting this team.

"I can't change what I did, Skye. I can't undo all the pain I've caused. But there is one thing that I know I _have_ to change- if I don't I won't be able to go on with life. If there's one thing I'm going to change, it's the way you're looking at me right now." Skye dropped her gaze. Her lap was very interesting all of a sudden. "Skye" he whispered, leaning forward to take her hand. The touch made her jump and she pulled her arm away.

"It's been more than two minutes, Ward. You've said your piece. I assume May can take it from here?"

Ward nodded and Skye had to keep herself from running out of the room. As soon as the door had closed behind her she bolted, shrugging past Coulson and locking herself in her bunk.

The tears flowed unwittingly, and soon she couldn't stop. She fell asleep on top of her blankets, the pillowcase covered in tears.

When she woke up, around 2am, her head was pounding and her throat was raw. She walked through the silent plane to grab a glass of water from the kitchen, but then found herself going into the viewing room next to Ward's cell instead of going back to her bunk.

She pulled the footage of the interrogation up on the monitor… The video started at the point of her entrance and Ward's 'speech'. Skye fast-forwarded through that, and started watching at the point when he'd begun spilling HYDRA secrets.

It almost seemed as though she was watching a standard debriefing from one agent to another. May hadn't even had to ask him any questions; he'd just gone ahead and walked her through the whole operation.

After watching about twenty minutes of the footage, Skye skipped to the end of the tape. May was already at the door, about to leave, when Ward called out.

"Melinda?" The woman turned just enough to see him. "If you and I were ever friends, do one thing for me now. Tell Skye I'm sorry." May looked him over once more, walked over and slapped him hard across the face, and then left. The screen went black as the video ended, but not before Skye saw the last look on Ward's face- a look of lost hope.

Skye shut down the computer and stood up, about to go back to bed, but stopped with her hand on the door handle. She turned around and, before she had a chance to change her mind, pulled back the curtain that was covering the two- way mirror that was set into the wall.

She's expected to see Ward asleep on the cot in the corner, but he wasn't. Despite the late hour, he was awake, pacing around the cell. After a moment, he looked right at her. Skye gasped. There was no way he could know that she was there, and yet he did. His grey eyes were piercing, as waves of desperation radiated from them to wash over her.

Skye threw every S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol out the window just then. She made sure that the security cameras were off, then went over and placed her hand on the door that led into Grant's cell. With a great inhale for courage, she pushed the door open and walked in.

Grant looked at her in disbelief. "Skye…" he breathed. He walked over to her, almost in a trance. Just a moment before he pulled her into his arms he stopped, realizing that he might frighten her off if he did.

Skye closed her eyes. "Did you mean it?" she asked quietly. "Did you really and truly mean it?"

"Every single word" he replied in a low voice.

Skye let out a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding as she closed the distance between them and buried her face against his chest. Grant wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head as she clung to him, shaking.

When she had calmed down somewhat, he led her over to the cot and they sat on the edge. Skye was all but sitting in Ward's lap, but neither of them had any objections to that.

"Why?" Skye whispered, so quietly that, had Ward not been a Specialist (and thus trained to be highly alert at all times), he probably wouldn't have heard it.

"John Garret was my S.O., but he was more than that too. He gave me a new life, he was practically my father. I owed him. So when he-"

"No" Skye cut him off. "That's not what I mean." Ward looked at her in confusion. "I meant, why… why do you love me? Why would you even notice me? I mean, I've seen the way other girls flock to you. You could date supermodels! So why me? What's so special about me? I lived in a fucking van before you guys found me for christ's sake! So, why?"

Grant brought a hand up to her face, turning her gaze towards him. Only when her eyes met his did he reply. "How?" was his answer, making Skye hit him lightly on the chest. "How can you not see how amazing you are? How can you think so little of yourself, when you mean so much to me. How can someone with such a bright view of the world not see herself in the same light? And how," he asked, placing a light kiss on her lips before continuing, "_How_ could I love anyone else?"

Tears of joy welled up in Skye's eyes as she brought her lips to his. The kiss began gentle, but soon became the most passionate either of them had ever had.


	2. Consequences

**AN: Hey guys, so I know I said I'd try to update once a week, but I've got a couple of chapters done already and there've been so many follows and favourites that I couldn't help myself, I wanted to share this next chapter with you immediately! I hope you enjoy Chapter Two, _Consequences_.**

May walked into the cell in the morning and found Skye and Ward curled up together on the cot. With a sigh she picked up Skye's shirt off the floor and passed it to her as she woke the young woman up.

"Why do I keep fining you like this?" May asked when Skye sat bolt upright.

"Come on, it was one other time" Skye protested as she pulled the shirt over her head.

"And this makes twice. Fool me once, Skye…"

"I know, I know!"

Grant chose that moment to wake up. "What do you know?" Then, he spotted May. "Oh."

Melinda jerked her head towards the door and Skye quickly got up and hurried out of the room.

An hour later, Coulson found Skye in her bunk. She knew he would eventually, but there really wasn't anywhere to run when they were at 30,000 feet, and she hadn't bothered trying to hide. She knew she'd have to face him eventually anyways.

"My office" he ordered before turning on his heel and walking away.

Like a criminal on her way to the gallows, Skye reluctantly followed him.

"May told you." Skye said as Coulson closed the office door. It wasn't a question.

"Of course she did. What were you thinking, Skye? Ward is dangerous! You violated protocol, put yourself in danger, you put this whole team in danger! What if Ward had used you to escape?"

"But he didn't! I knew he wouldn't! I watched the footage, I saw his eyes! That was genuine remorse I saw, Coulson."

"Of course it was. Because he's a Specialist, for god's sake! It's his job to make you believe anything he tells you. It's his job to make you trust him!"

"Well, then he should be fired from that job," Skye calmly replied, "because he failed to do it."

"Do what?"

"Make me trust him. Oh, I believe him, yeah. I'm trying to forgive him. But I only trust him as far as I can throw him, and we both know that wouldn't be very far."

"You fell asleep with him, Skye."

"Okay, I'll admit _that_ was stupid. But I don't take back the rest of it."

"Dammit, Skye! You can't keep wearing those rose coloured glasses, especially where Ward is concerned! He betrayed you even more than the rest of us. You should be pissed!"

"I am! But I've made mistakes before too. That time I messed up with Miles, I knew what I was doing was wrong. And I was honest to god, truly sorry about it afterwards. Being on parole for months sucked, but it let me earn back your trust which was exactly what I needed. I think it's the same thing here. Yeah, Grant fucked up on a bigger scale than I did, and yeah, it had more severe repercussions. But it's the same situation. Give him consequences, of course! But you should also give him another chance. Sometimes, that's all someone needs to grow." Skye stood up and went around the desk to put a hand on Coulson's shoulder. "I know you'll do the right thing, AC. You always have for me." She gave his shoulder a light squeeze before leaving the office to go down to the training room. May had been teaching her some Tai Chi, and it seemed like a good idea at the moment. Unfortunately, she had to pass by the lab to get there.

Fitz and Simmons had clearly heard about that night's incident, because they ambushed her as soon as they laid eyes on her.

"Skye, what were you thinking?"

"Are you alright?"

"Seriously, what could have been going through your head?"

"Guys!" she interrupted, "Not a good time. I just finished dealing with Coulson, give a girl a break!" The pair of scientists started to protest, but Skye just pushed her way past them and locked the training room door behind her.

When she came out later, the bus was quiet. It took her nearly ten minutes to find everyone (which was a lot considering that the bus didn't have a lot of places for them to be). Coulson had called May and FitzSimmons into his office. All four of them looked up when Skye knocked, and Coulson called her in.

"What's up guys?" Skye asked, concerned by all the serious faces in the room.

"I've been sharing your opinion about Ward with the others. His actions affected all of us, it only seems fair that everyone has a say in the outcome."

"And?" she breathed.

"And we're still coming up with a system, but… you're right. We're willing to give him a second chance."

Skye's heart leapt. "Okay, great, what have we got so far?"

"A similar device to what we had for you, but more intense. And we're still trying to work out a failsafe." Simmons told her.

"A failsafe? What do you mean?"

Simmons looked vaguely uncomfortable, but Coulson stepped in to save her. "Skye, no offence, but you're a bit too close to the situation. Let us handle this, and we'll fill you in when a decision is made. You might not like it, but I promise you it will be better than any alternative."

"What's that mean?" Skye demanded.

"It means we need to be cautious, and after last night's incident, caution clearly isn't your forte!" May snapped. "Now get out and let us fix this mess!"

"And stay out of the cell." Coulson warned Skye's retreating form.

She all but slammed the office door shut behind her, and paced around the living room for a solid fifteen minutes before going back down to the training room. There was no Tai Chi, self-centering, calmness crap this time. Instead, Skye wrapped bandages around her hands, just like her S.O. had taught her, and then she let all her frustration out on the punching bag. She landed punch after punch, even throwing in the occasional kick, causing the bag to swing back and forth.

_This is ridiculous_, she thought as she hit, _just because I do one 'dumb' thing, suddenly I no longer care about caution?_

"Not where Ward is concerned." May stood in the doorway, but moved into the room and held the bag in place to keep it from swinging as Skye continued to punch. "You were thinking out loud."

"Sorry."

"It's alright. I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have snapped at you back there. It's just, there's a part of me that feels exactly like you do right now. I used you to take out the frustration I was feeling towards myself."

"Call it even then" Skye sighed.

A few hits later, May spoke again. "Phil asked me to come get you. We've figured out Ward's second chance."

Hope and dread filled Skye's heard in equal measure as she followed May upstairs and into the cell where the team was gathered.

Ward was sitting in one of the metal chairs again, and Simmons had an enormous needle stuck in his arm. Fitz had possession of Ward's other arm, and was attaching a silver bracelet to his arm (although this one was a bit more masculine than the one that Skye had worn), and Coulson was staring at a series of fluctuating graphs on a screen. It only took a few more minutes for FitzSimmons to finish their work, and then Coulson started briefing Ward on the new rules.

"Right. Thank you for your cooperation, Grant. I know that needle couldn't have been pleasant."

"I've had worse, sir."

"I'm sure you have. In any case, let's start with the bracelet, since it's easier to explain. That device will monitor your location and any electronics usage, including internet, phone calls, hell, it will tell us if you use the coffee maker. It also monitors your vitals and sends that information back to this computer. The computer will take that information and run it through a program to detect lies. Any time your honesty is questioned, you will be required to perform a full scale lie detector test about the incident. Furthermore, it will automatically draw a sample of blood every two hours and test it for hormone levels indicating aggression.

"Now, that needle that Simmons gave you was to install a failsafe for the system. There are now two capsule-like devices in your system. One of them is filled with a concentrated dose of the neurotoxin that's in the night-night gun. The other contains a toxin which has the ability to kill you within three seconds of its release. The five of us will each have a device on our person at all times which will allow us to deploy one of those capsules, should we feel threatened in any way." As he said this, Fitz attached a thin metal bracelet with a red and a blue button around her wrist. Each button had a little cover over it that would have to be flipped open so that the button couldn't be hit accidentally. Skye looked around and noticed that all the others were wearing a similar device. Coulson kept talking as Fitz worked. "If your tracker shows that you're in a location you shouldn't be, the icer will be automatically deployed. If your blood tests come back with high signs of aggression, the icer will be automatically deployed. If you're performing any suspicious activity on the internet or attempting to call someone you shouldn't, the icer will be automatically deployed. If your bracelet is removed without proper authorization, the icer will be automatically deployed. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir, I do."

"Good, because there's more. You will, of course, not have a gun, or any weapon of any kind. You are not permitted to enter the lab without my express permission. You are not permitted into any team member's personal quarters. Your personal quarters will be the cell for the time being. You will be locked in here from 10pm until 6am every night unless given an exception from me. You take orders from everyone on this team. And if any of us feel uncomfortable with this arrangement at any time, we reserve the right to send you to the fridge, without warning. Do you agree?"

"Yes sir."

"Good." Coulson allowed himself a small smile. "Welcome back to the team, Ward."

"Thank you, sir. Thank _all_ of you. I know I broke your trust before, I swear on my life I won't do it again."

**AN: Hope you guys liked it! Also, as I mentioned above, I do have a couple extra chapters already written... I just need some motivation to release them early! As soon as I get 7 reviews, I'll post the next chapter. Love you all! 3**


	3. Wisdom

**AN: Holy Macaroni! If I'd known it would be that easy, I would have held this chapter to a higher ransom! But, a promise is a promise, so here you go. Also, a lot of the reviews I got were saying that the lethal toxin was a bit extreme... Let me just point out that it is for extreme cases only. That's only there in case something seriously major goes down, like if Ward goes back to HYDRA (in which case just icing him wouldn't matter since it would only knock him out for a few hours). So don't worry. It's literally JUST a failsafe, for dire situations only. Anyways, I'm glad that so many of you are enjoying this!**

Although everyone else left the cell fairly quickly after that, Skye stayed behind with Ward.

"I'm guessing this was mainly your doing?" he asked, taking her hand and drawing circles on it with his thumb.

"I gave them the idea, they decided how to carry it out. I don't like the fact that you have little poison bombs in your body, but Coulson was right. He told me that I might not like the solution that they came up with, but that it would be better than the alternative. I get to have you here, with me. That's a lot better than having them put you in the fridge, I'd say."

"I'd say so too. I trust everyone on this bus not to push that trigger button without good reason, so these little poison bombs, as you call them, seem a small price to pay for your company." He pulled her close and the two just stood for a moment, reveling in the other's presence. "Skye?"

"Mmm?"

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you trust me so much? Why are you so willing to give me a second chance, after all I've done?"

She looked up at him. "Because. I know what it's like. What it's like when you're loyal to someone, because you've known them forever. They're your family, your safety. But then you find a new family, new people to be loyal too. Until that first person comes back and says, 'hey, I need you to choose'. And you can't, it's impossible to choose, but you have to. So, you choose the one you were loyal to first, because that's just fair, right? But it eats you alive the whole time, the fact that you're betraying your new family for your old one. And when it's over, you wish you could take it back. Because you didn't want to betray anyone, but you felt you didn't have a choice. But I know, there's no going back. There's no do-overs, no rewind button on life. You just have to go forwards, and try and salvage what you can."

He stared at her. "That's exactly it. But how…"

"I've fucked up before too, Ward. Remember when I had to wear one of those?" she pointed to his newest accessory. "That's what I told Coulson. You fucked up, but you're not the only one. They gave me a second chance, so I asked for one for you too.

"Let me give you some advice. The first couple weeks, they're gonna suck. You have run of the bus during the day, but when you go out there people are still gonna look at you. They'll go quiet when you walk into a room, or they might even leave. Don't let it phase you. It's going to take time for them to trust you again but it's worth it. And you'll feel like you're trying to move a mountain just by pushing it, like nothing you do is going to help, but I swear it will. I promise you, they'll come around."

"When did you get so smart?" Ward asked playfully as he tugged on a strand of Skye's hair.

"I always have been" she winked. "Now come on, Coulson never said that you're not my S.O. anymore, and you've missed a lot of training sessions. I've tried to keep up, but I need my drill sergeant to whip me into shape again."

Ward laughed. "Sounds good to me, Rookie."

They walked hand in hand to the training room, passing the rest of the team in the lounge on the way. If anyone disapproved of their closeness, they certainly didn't say anything, but the duo knew that it would be a long time before any of them would actually understand.

Ward kicked Skye's ass that afternoon. For over an hour he made her do pushups, sit ups, chin-ups, jumping jacks. Then, he spent two hours on combat training.

"Your technique's gotten sloppy" he told her as she practiced hitting the punching bag again. He came up behind her and kicked her legs farther apart, while placing his hands on her hips to bring her torso back into the right position. "Now, tighten your core as you punch but remember to breathe while you do it. Much better" he said as she hit the bag once more. He made her continue for twenty minutes, correcting her posture whenever needed. Finally, he was happy.

"Alright, to the mats now, Rookie." he ordered. Skye stuck her tongue out at him, but followed any ways. He started to wrap his own hands, but Skye stopped him.

"What are you doing?"

"Teaching." He answered.

"You want to fight me?"

"Better for you to learn on someone who'll pull a punch than on someone who'll take you down first chance they get. Besides, I think you deserve a couple hits…"

"Ward, I'm not fighting you. Not until that bracelet is off. Sparring will spike your blood with whatever it is that that thing is testing for and you'll get dropped. It's not happening."

"You're just trying to get out of training."

"Am not. If that's what I was trying to do, I would let you get iced. That would get me out of training a lot easier. Look, if you want me to spar, I'll go get May. But you need to stay calm."

"You want to fight May?"

"No, but I'm sure she'd be willing to ease up a bit, to teach me. Besides, I could learn some stuff from her. You're a big dude, Ward. Your fighting style is great and all, but shouldn't I learn how to fight like a small person?"

Ward sighed. She had a point. "Fine. Go get May."

Skye gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and then ran out of the room and up to the main space of the bus. She checked the cockpit, but saw the Auto Pilot light on, and no sign of Melinda. She spotted Simmons as she walked back into the lounge.

"Hey Jemma, do you know where May is?"

"In her bunk, I believe. Why?"

"Thanks. I just need to borrow her for a bit." She walked down the hall and stopped in front of Melinda's door. "May?" she called as she knocked.

"Go away" called the voice from inside. It was Melinda's voice, but she sounded… different.

"Hey, what's up? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just leave."

"You don't sound fine." Skye tried the handle and found the door to be unlocked. "I'm coming in" she warned.

"You do and I'll knock you out" May replied.

"I'll take that chance" said Skye. She pushed the door open slowly, ducking to dodge the pillow that May uncharacteristically threw at her. Of course, it was May, so the pillow hit her anyways.

The room was dark. May had all the lights off and the only light was coming from the window that she was sitting next to. There was a box of tissues next to her, and one in her hand.

"Oh my god, May, What's wrong?"

"You all think that I don't have emotions, but I do. I just usually keep them in check. But, right now… they're causing me a small level of distress" she sniffed.

"Is that warrior talk for 'I'm feeling pretty blue'?" Skye teased.

May chuckled a bit, before another sob wracked through her. "More like 'I don't know what to make of the world anymore', combined with a delayed dose of 'everything is falling to pieces'."

Skye went and sat next to the older woman. "Sometimes the world doesn't make sense. But, you don't need the whole world to make sense, just your one little part of it. I'm guessing that that's the problem though, huh? Ward's thrown a curveball into your organized little world, and now it's hard to tell which way is up, isn't it?"

"You get it. I'm not sure anyone else would."

"I get it because I'm in the same boat. Only thing is, I'm used to a messy little world. You've seen my room, I've got stuff everywhere. It's chaos. But I still know where everything is because I've accepted the fact that it's going to be chaos. I've learned to work around the mess. But you, you come from a life of order. I mean, your room is spotless, you have a daily routine that you follow pretty much to the second, hell you worked in administration before, which is as organized as it gets. The world's just like that, May. The thing is, you can't control the world. It's not something that you can put in boxes and file away neatly. You've just got to take the world as it is, and figure out how to find things anyways."

"You're pretty smart for someone almost half my age" May begrudgingly admitted.

Skye laughed. "Yeah, I'm getting good at this 'being wise' thing. You feeling better now?"

"Much."

"Good. Cause I have a favour to ask…"

"And what's that?"

"Teach me your ways, oh great one." May just lifted an eyebrow in response. "Ward wants me to learn to fight. He wanted to spar with me but I wouldn't let him."

"Good, it probably would have set off his bracelet."

"Exactly what I said. But he still wants me to practice. And I was thinking, your fighting style would probably work better for me than his would anyways since we're more alike, you know, physicality wise."

"That's true. But if you want me to teach you, you have to be willing to learn. It will be hard. You might think it's boring. But you have to do exactly what I tell you, without complaining."

"Okay. I promise, May."

May nodded in response. "Okay then. Meet me in the training room in ten. Just you and me." Skye nodded and went to leave. "Oh, and Skye?"

"Yeah?"

"My friends can call me Mel."

Skye grinned and closed the door behind her.

**AN: Next chapter- 20 reviews. And seriously, I can take notes! If there's something that you think could be handled better in future chapters, let me know! That's how I can get better!**


	4. Lessons

**AN: Whaddup my peeps? Did you miss me? I know it's been like, less than two days, but I'm an impatient person so I know how y'all must feel. Thank you all for your reviews! I swear I am using some of the suggestions you've given, it's just that you won't see them until a bit later because I'm writing a couple chapters ahead and all. Anyways, hope you enjoy this chapter, _Lessons_.**

Ward wasn't happy when Skye kicked him out of the training room.

"I'm your S.O., I should at least be here to oversee your training!" he protested.

"Well, May said you can't. I'll show you what she teaches me later, but right now you've got to trust me. Trust her. Just, go upstairs and hang out with FitzSimmons or Coulson. You're not going to get close to them again by hiding out in the training room with me."

Ward sighed, but nodded. He gave Skye a quick kiss and a hug before he left the room, passing Melinda in the doorway.

"Okay, May, I mean Mel, I'm ready." Skye said.

"No you're not." May replied. "Sit."

Skye was confused, but followed her teacher's lead and sat down, cross legged on the mats. May closed her eyes, and so Skye did too. She sat there for a moment, then opened one eye to peak.

"Close your eyes" May said, without opening her own. Skye instantly shut the offending eyelid, and kept it closed. She was just starting to relax when she received a sharp blow to the back of her head.

"Ow! What the hell?" she yelled, snapping her eyes open to find that Melinda was no longer sitting in front of her. "When did you even get up?"

"Close your eyes" May ordered again. "Be aware of your surroundings. Don't rely on your sight to tell you where I am. _Feel_ it. There are thousands of nerves in your body. Use them to know where I am."

Skye rubbed the back of her head, but did as she was told. After a couple minutes, she thought that she was getting the hang of it. She had a feeling that Mel was beside her. Then, all of a sudden, May landed a kick, right against the side of her ribs… On the opposite side that Skye had thought she was on. She rubbed the spot, but kept her eyes shut this time.

"Humans are born with instincts, Skye. Use them. When you feel the hair on the back of your neck stick up, listen to it. When you hear a sound but dismiss it as irrelevant, listen to it. When you feel a change in the air, when the minute air current feels different, react to it! Listen to all the information that your body is giving you." All of a sudden, Skye threw her hands out in front of her and grabbed May's foot where it had been about to strike her chest. She opened her eyes and grinned, before realizing that she was holding the leg off of one of the practice dummies, and Melinda's real foot landed in the small of her back. "Better" May allowed, as she offered her hand to help the girl off the ground. "Don't worry, it will come easier with practice. But I want you to practice your awareness at all times. I just might surprise you" she warned.

"I will" Skye promised. "But, weren't you going to teach me how to fight?"

"I am" May told her. "First rule of combat is 'know where your opponent is'. In a real fight, you can't afford to lose track of them for even a second. The third rule of combat is 'hit harder than your opponent does'."

"What's the second?" Skye asked.

"Don't get hit," May replied, as she rushed the rookie. Skye stepped out of the way, but still got dealt a grazing blow. She spun around and lunged at May, who quickly stepped out of the way and sent Skye (who was already off balance from the punch) sprawling on the floor in one graceful motion. Immediately, she offered the girl her hand and pulled her back to her feet. "Anticipate. Before you try to hit me, figure out how I'm going to move to avoid it. Then compensate for that. Try again."

Skye nodded. This time she was slower to attack. She started to move in on Melinda's left side, ready to cross punch her trainer. Before Skye's hands even left her sides, May's arm shot out towards her to deal a blow. Skye grabbed the wrist as it flew towards her, spun around, bent forward and threw May over her shoulder and onto the mat. It was a move Ward had used on her plenty of times, but she'd never been able to use it on him; partially because he was too big and heavy for her to throw over her shoulder like that, but also partially because it was his move, and he was always ready for it.

"Nice fake" May awarded. "You never intended to punch me, did you?"

"Nope" Skye grinned.

Mel nodded. "Good. Now do that twenty more times and I'll call you ready. But for now, you're not even close."

The lesson went on for another hour. Skye received at least 8 blows for every one she landed, and a couple of bruises were already forming when they had finished. She knew she was gonna hurt like hell in the morning. When she mentioned it to May, the woman brought her over to the punching bag.

"Watch… Stand back" Mel warned as she positioned herself in front of the heavy bag. Skye did as she was told, and all of a sudden May's leg shot out from under her, hitting the bag with a loud THWACK. The bag swung out at a more than 45° angle. "That's how hard I _can_ hit" May clarified once the bag had stopped swinging. "I hit you hard enough to learn. You will have bruises, yes, but each mark you receive is a lesson. Take this, for example" May said as she pulled up her shirt to reveal a long scar that wrapped around from her belly button to part way across her back. "I got this in one of my first real fights. I was slow, and I was sloppy. See, when I was in training, they never hit this hard. The hits would sting, but they'd never leave a mark. And so there was no reason for me to be perfect, because it didn't hurt that much when I wasn't. But when it was real, when I got this, I learned pretty damn fast that I had to be faster, had to be better than the other guy.

"This injury almost killed me, Skye. I hit you hard enough that you have a chance to learn the lessons, before your life is on the line. Make sense?" Skye nodded. "Good. Now go take a hot bath, we're done for today, and your muscles will need the soak."

"Thanks Mel" Skye whispered as she gave Melinda a hug. May just stiffened, and Skye laughed as she let go and ran from the room.

**AN: Also, I'm not going to hold the next chapter ransom for reviews again, BUT I would really appreciate some! I've started losing momentum and it's getting hard to motivate myself to keep going, so reviews would really help! Thanks, I love you guys! 3**


	5. Bonding

**AN: Hey all, it's been a slow couple of days for me, but I am still going! I'm basically posting at the rate that I write though, so if I finish more chapters quickly, then I'll post them faster too! You know how to motivate me ;) Anyways, without further ado, here's Chapter 5, _Bonding_.**

To say that Ward was disgruntled at being kicked out of the training room would be putting it gently. Still, he understood that May (kind of) had a point, so he took Skye's advice and went to try and re-make friends with the rest of the team. He figured he'd try Fitz and Simmons first, since he'd been closer with them than he had been with Coulson. But, of course, they were in the lab, where he was not allowed to go. He knocked on the door and Simmons came over for a moment, but she and Fitz were 'in the middle of an important experiment' and were 'really sorry they couldn't come chat at the moment'.

That left Coulson then. He climbed the spiral staircase and went up to the head honcho's office. The door was closed, but Coulson quickly let him in when he tapped lightly on the door.

"Ward. What can I do for you?" Phil asked politely.

"I was hoping you'd be willing to show me some of your collectables" Grant replied. "I know we didn't really bond much before, but I want to change that. And you've got some pretty cool stuff here, so I thought that would make a decent jumping point, sir."

"It is pretty cool" Coulson admitted in his sheepish way. "Have you ever heard of a Grap-n-Go 005?"

"Can't say I have, sir. What is it, a grappling hook?"

"Oh it's more than that!" Coulson exclaimed as he pulled the relic down from its shelf. "This baby could not only fire a grappling hook over 400 meters, but the hook could also be released remotely! So say you shot this puppy into the grating on the fourteenth floor window, and had to climb in the twelfth floor. Well, as soon as you were in the window you just push this little button and the hook shuts and retracts, leaving no sign that you were ever there! Unfortunately it got discontinued in 1984, because there were a couple incidents where the hook accidentally deactivated too soon. Agents were hurt, enemies got away, bad things happened…

"Oh, but this! This is the original laser lipstick. It was invented for Peggy Carter herself! They say she had one in over 20 shades, I guess that's why this one was never missed. Look how genius it is! I mean, today's tech that's hidden inside a lipstick container is almost always just the tech, the agent wouldn't be able to use the lip colour at all. But this model was actually able to be used! Which is good, because if someone searched the female agent's purse, they might notice if her lipstick didn't match the lipstick on her lips. But with this it actually would match! They say that these babies got Agent Carter out of more than a few tough situations!"

Coulson went on for about an hour, showcasing each of his old gadgets. Ward had gone into the situation expecting to have to force himself to stay awake, but actually found it very fascinating. A lot of the gadgets had been pulled for good reason, but the stories behind them were often hilarious. And some of the other tech he couldn't believe had been discontinued. There were a lot of very useful gadgets on Coulson's shelves, but many of them were just obsolete due to newer inventions. It was kind of sad, in a way.

After they had made their way around the room, and Ward had seen almost all the old tech, Coulson offered Grant a cup of coffee. The younger agent accepted, and they sat together with their java.

"Ward, I have to ask" Coulson began tentatively, "Was there anything I could have done?"

Ward knew right away what he was talking about. "I really don't think so, sir. It's not like I was a member of this team and then turned HYDRA, I was a member of HYDRA who happened to join this team. Honestly, I'd say that you did do everything you could have done. Turning my back on you guys was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and the way you treated me, treated all of us, was a big factor in making it so hard. I mean, I almost backed out a couple times, but Garrett's hold was just a bit stronger than yours. Not from a lack of effort on your part, of course, but because Garrett had that much longer to get a good grip.

"You were the best leader I've ever had, sir. I'd follow you into any mission, no matter what the cost, because I know that you'd be in it with me. You're not the type to send in others to do your dirty work. I respect that, sir. So, was there anything you could have done?" Ward shook his head. "Nothing more than what you did without even trying."

"Thank you, Grant" Phil whispered silently. "I've been asking myself that question for weeks, been beating myself up over it. I think you just gave me the peace I needed."

"Glad to help, sir." Ward stood up. "But if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go see if FitzSimmons have finished their experiment yet. Thank you very much for the tour, and the coffee."

"Any time, Ward. Truly, any time. My door is always open."

"Thank you, sir." Ward shook Coulson's hand briefly, then went out into the lounge.

It turned out that he had good timing. Jemma and Leo were just coming up the stairs as Ward entered the lounge.

"Hey, how'd the experiment go?" Ward asked cheerily.

"Dandy." Fitz replied briskly, before whispering something to Simmons and walking into his bunk. The door closed with a loud click, as he hadn't been overtly gentle in closing it.

Ward looked to Simmons. "Dandy?" he asked.

"Well, I suppose that's one word for it. We've been having some issues with a new prototype neurotoxin we've been developing, and so we were running some tests. We discovered that the molecular balance was off, so we were trying to correct it. We've almost got it figure out, but we're both burnt out. We're going to get back to it tomorrow, I think. But Fitz's description was accurate enough… Figuring out the problem is nearly half the solution, right?"

"Sounds accurate" Ward replied. "What's the nanotoxin do?"

"Neurotoxin. And it's sort of a variant of the icer technology. We're trying to create a strand of it that will incapacitate the body, but keep the mind active and alert, and allow the affected party the ability to communicate. Unfortunately it's proving difficult. We've got it to the point where the body is paralyzed while maintaining an unaffected cerebrum and cerebellum, but allowing speech is more challenging because we have to find a way to force the neurotoxin to leave the muscles that allow speech alone."

"Any way to make it target the spinal cord only? I mean, if you're trying to hit all the muscle groups, then you'll have a hard time leaving a couple specific ones alone. But what if you just cut off the system telling the muscles what to do? They'd lose all control of their major motor skills, but speech doesn't require any electrical impulses to pass through the spinal column so it shouldn't be affected, right?"

Jemma gasped. "Ward, that's genius! I can't believe we didn't think of that! I have to go tell Fitz!"

"Guess those anatomy courses I took as electives in college came in handy after all."

"The most certainly did!" Simmons called as she rushed off.

Smiling, Ward plopped down on the couch in the lounge and turned on the TV.

**AN: So yeah! Hope you liked it. If you did, review! If you didn't, review to tell me why not! I'm really excited to share the next few chapters with you guys soon, I think you'll really like the next few chapters! I'll hopefully post chapter 6 within the next couple days. See you soon! 3**


	6. Unwind

**AN: I couldn't wait! This chapter has some SkyeWard fluffiness in it (and even some Skimmons friendship) so I wanted it out there ASAP! And I'm just in a happy mood so I hope this makes you happy too!**

Ward turned off the TV as soon as Skye came into the room.

"How was training?" he asked.

"I need a hot bath, now. My muscles are on fire and I feel like a steak that's just been tenderized."

Ward laughed, but then saw the serious look on her face and did a double take as he noticed the light bruises that were beginning to form on her arms and legs. "Wow, May did that?"

"She was teaching me."

"Yeah, but you're bruising!"

"Each mark is a lesson. Now just let me get that bath going."

"You go get a glass of water, I'll run the bath for you" he told her. Skye nodded and set off for the kitchen, slowly.

Ward went into the bathroom and started running water into the tub. He made sure that the water was warm enough to be soothing, but not so hot as to be uncomfortable. Then, he grabbed some Epsom salts from under the sink and sprinkled them in the water. Skye came in just as he was turning off the taps, and he started to leave but she grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him back.

"You worked out a bit too, mister. Care to join me?"

Ward responded by pulling off his shirt and kissing her on the lips. The tub was technically only made for one person, but they made it work. It came dangerously close to overflowing when Skye sat on Ward's lap, but they managed to save it by draining a bit of the water.

"Mmmm" Skye sighed. The warm water and Grant's massaging hands on her back were pure bliss. As he was rubbing, he discovered more and more bruises covering her.

"What did you mean when you said that the bruises were lessons?"

"May says that I'll learn better if my mistakes have consequences. That if she doesn't hit me hard enough to leave a mark, then I won't have incentive to improve."

"You must be learning lots then."

"Some" Sky joked. "I even flipped Mel once! I used that move you showed me."

"Which one?"

"Well, I'll give you a hint," Sky whispered as she turned around to face him. "It wasn't this one." She kissed him, hard.

A moment later they were interrupted by a knock at the door. "Skye?" Jemma called from outside the door. "May I come in?"

Ward groaned. Skye smacked him lightly and held a finger up to her lips as she pulled the curtain across. "She'll be suspicious if I say no" she whispered to Ward, then called "Yeah, come in" in a louder voice.

Jemma was only in the room for a couple minutes. Fortunately she didn't seem to notice the fact that there were a few too many articles of clothing in the pile on the floor. The girls chatted idly while Simmons relieved herself and Skye kept shooting Ward death glares as he poked and tickled her. Once or twice she almost laughed at the touch, but managed to hold back the sound at the last second. As soon as the door closed behind Simmons, the two bathers dissolved into laughter.

The rest of the bath was pleasant. Ward even washed Skye's hair for her, which had Skye moaning even more than the massage had. After they finally decided to get out and dry off, Ward sent Skye out first to check that the coast was clear. It was.

"Wanna watch a movie?" Grant asked as he joined her in the empty lounge.

"Sure," Skye replied. "Should I go see if the others want to join us? It would give you a chance to bond some more… How did that go this afternoon, by the away?"

"It wasn't bad… I think I made some headway with Coulson and I helped Simmons out with a neurotoxin that she was having issues with... I think that Fitz is going to be harder though. He's been avoiding me pretty rigorously."

"He'll come around. Maybe we can pick a movie that he can't resist… What do you think, _Rise of the Planet of the Apes_, or _Curious George_?"

Ward laughed. "How about _I, Robot_?" he suggested instead.

"Okay. I'll go get the others, you make popcorn and set the movie up."

Skye went to Simmon's bunk first. She figured it would be easier to convince Fitz if she had Jemma's help. "Come in" Jemma invited at Skye's knock. Skye went in and found Jemma reading on the bed.

"Oh hey Skye" Jemma smiled. "All finished with your bath?"

"Oh yeah, it was exactly what I needed."

"I bet" Jemma giggled. "I saw Ward's clothes mixed in with yours."

"Shit! You did? You didn't let on!"

"Well I wasn't going to say anything when he was there!" Both girls grinned, but then Simmons sobered up. "You are being cautious, aren't you Skye? I mean, I'm happy to give him this second chance, but you still need to be on your guard."

"I am, don't worry. I've got May teaching me to kick ass now too. I can hold my own."

"I'm more concerned about your mental wellbeing, Skye. If I didn't know you as well as I do, I might not have noticed it, but Ward's betrayal hit you pretty hard, didn't it?"

Skye looked at the floor and shuffled her feet. "Yeah. I don't even know how I got through it. Having a job to do helped, I guess, but I just, I couldn't believe it. Even now I guess I've only partially accepted it. In my mind, I know that it happened and I'm pissed, but my heart hasn't really grasped it. And now I'm just moving forward. I'm forgiving him.

"That's probably why I'm so callous, at least by your standards. I'm kind of just skipping over it."

"And if it happens again?"

"Jemma…"

"You need to at least consider it!"

"I can't! I can't Jemma. If it happens again, then I'll fall to pieces. But that doesn't change anything now. I can't love him any less now because of what he might or might not do later. I can't love him any less because of what he did before. I tried. I tried to hate him, Jem. I yelled and screamed and swore and hit things, and after that I cried. I cried because I still loved him, despite it all.

"So am I being cautious? Probably not. But I'd say that I'm being as cautious as I can be."

Simmons gave a little smile. "I was afraid you'd say something like that. Just know that I'm always here for you, Skye."

"Thanks Jem." Skye gave the other girl a hug. "Anyways, what I came for was to ask if you wanted to watch a movie."

"Oh, what movie?"

"_I, Robot_."

"Oh Fitz adores that movie! Can he join us?"

"Absolutely! If you can convince him."

"Convince him? Oh… Ward's watching it too, isn't he?"

"He's making the popcorn right now."

Simmons sighed. "Fitz took this whole thing quite hard… I mean, he believed in Ward until nearly the very end! He was so sure that Ward was just undercover, pretending to be HYDRA, or that he was under Cybertek's control. He refused to believe otherwise. But then, when it came out that it really was Grant, acting on his own… Well, I think he partially blamed himself. I don't know why, but I'm pretty sure he feels that there's something he should have done. And now, that guilt is coming out in the form of anger. I think Ward just needs to talk to him, but that might be easier said than done, because Fitz wants nothing to do with him anymore."

"That's why I'm trying to at least get the two of them in the same room. I figured, one of Fitz's favourite movies might be enough incentive…"

Simmons shook her head. "Not even close I'm afraid. Look, you and Ward enjoy your movie. I'll talk to Fitz and maybe in a couple hours we can push the two of them together. It might get loud, but I think that once Fitz gets it out of his system, he'll get over it pretty quickly."

"I'm pretty sure that Grant'll do anything at this point. Hell, if Fitz wants to hit him, he probably wouldn't even fight back. He won't say anything, but I know he misses him."

"I think that Fitz is smarter than that, but I'll keep it in mind. I'll text you later, to tell you when and where Ward should meet Fitz."

"Okay. Thanks Jems, you rock."

"Anything for you, Skye. Enjoy your movie."

Skye went back into the lounge and found Ward sitting there, waiting with the popcorn.

"I think it's gonna be just you and me, big boy."

"Oh really? None of the others wanted to join us?"

"Well I only asked Simmons, but she said that she's quite sure that Fitz would say no. She's going to try to convince him to at least talk to you later though. She thinks he just needs a chance to address everything."

Ward nodded. "I guess that's fair. And the others?"

"Well, I was going to ask Mel and Coulson, but then I figured, you've already bonded with Coulson today, and there's always tomorrow for you to hash things out with May, so maybe tonight we could watch this, just us?"

"Sounds good to me!" Ward growled playfully as he grabbed Skye by the waist and pulled her into his lap.

**AN: If this made you happy, make me happy! Review! Thanks!**


	7. Voice

**AN: Hey all! So I know a lot of you have felt that the team's been letting Ward off too easy sometimes... I just want to point out that, yes, Skye is trusting and has forgiven him (as seen in her conversation with Simmons last chapter), and Coulson and Simmons are open to forgiving him (in time), but there are still two team members left. I think that the three who I just mentioned have personalities that would have them leaning towards forgiveness. But just wait and see how things pan out with the other two... Also keep in mind that everything that's happened so far (up until the end of the chapter) takes place in the span of one day! So he hasn't necessarily had a chance to really talk to everyone. That's the reason why it might seem a bit too easy... Anyways, I'm glad you guys are enjoying this so far! Thank you all for your support, and here's the newest chapter, _Voice_.**

Skye's phone vibrated twice an hour later, alerting her to the fact that she had a new text message. She ignored it for a few minutes though. She was a bit pre-occupied; neither her nor Ward had been paying much attention to the movie thus far. But when Skye jumped as a loud noise came from the sound system (an explosion had gone off in the movie), she accidentally hit her head pretty hard against Ward's and they both settled down to actually watch the screen for a bit (while cuddling still, of course). That was when she remembered the text and pulled out her phone.

_Send him to the kitchen at 9:45_ the text from Simmons read. _Fitz says he doesn't want to talk but he's always there for a nighttime snack at that time, so Ward can "accidentally" run into him then_.

Skye grinned. Her friend could be sneaky, when she wanted to be. She showed the message to Ward, and he nodded. They had started their movie at 7:30, so it would be over about 15 minutes before the time that Jemma had set.

Even when the movie had finished, Skye and Ward stayed on the couch, sitting in silence.

Finally it was 9:40, and Ward stood up. Skye stood too, and stood on her tip toes to give him a quick peck.

"For luck" she whispered. Ward nodded, then went into the kitchen while Skye sat back down and flipped through channels. A few minutes later, Fitz came out of his room and went towards the kitchen. Jemma snuck out of her room behind him, too, and went to sit next to Skye. Wordlessly, Skye passed her some of the leftover popcorn as Fitz's voice started getting louder in the other room.

Fitz was quietly humming under his breath as he walked into the kitchen, but stopped as soon as he saw its current inhabitant. Ward, the Specialist that he was, had been clever enough to look like he was there coincidentally- he was pretending to rummage through the fridge when Leo walked in.

"Oh, bloody.. Damn." Fitz muttered. Ward turned around.

"Hey, you want some celery sticks?" he offered casually, holding out the aforementioned item that he had pulled from the crisper.

"No, thank you. I don't want anything from you, Ward" Fitz spat. He was about to storm out of the room, but Ward put a hand on his arm.

"Hey, talk to me, man" he begged. "I fucked up, I'm sorry. I get it that you're pissed. You have every right to be. But at least tell me how I can make it better."

"You can't! You can't make it better! You can't erase the fact that you pushed me out of a plane, can't undo the fact that you would have killed me. Would have killed Simmons!" Leo's voice cracked on the second last word and he broke for a moment before the razor edge returned to his voice. "Just tell me. How the hell does someone become so wretched, that he would kill the people who thought they were his friends? What could drive someone to betray everyone who had ever actually cared about him?"

"You don't want to know that" Ward replied quietly.

"Yes Ward, yes I do. For once in your life, be honest and just _tell me_."

Ward leaned back against the counter and stuck his hands in his pockets. "You know about my family, yeah?"

"Yeah, they were awful people. A lot of people have awful families, Ward. That's not an excuse."

"I'm not saying that it is! I don't have an excuse. Just circumstances that you need to understand. My family, they were assholes. But Garrett was worse. For the first little while, it just seemed like tough love. A bit of psychological abuse. He'd give me things and then rip that bit of happiness away from me as soon as I'd become attached. He disconnected me from everyone else.

"But later it got worse. He was like my father, but he wasn't a good one. He was that drunk, abusive father that you hear about on the news when a neighbor calls the cops. Only no one called in to save me.

"You know, when you get told enough times that you're worthless, that you can't do anything right, you honestly start believing it no matter how much evidence proves the opposite. And the person who's telling you those things, they're the only one who has the power to make you feel worthwhile again. That's what happened. That's what drives someone to betray everyone they'd ever loved. Years of psychological warfare and physical beatings. Fear. Hopelessness.

"People aren't born evil, Fitz. But they sure as hell can be made that way."

Leo hadn't looked up from the floor the entire time that Grant had been talking, but he did when the Specialist's voice stopped. He looked at Ward for a moment, registered the pain in his eyes, and then nodded once. Silently, he walked out of the kitchen and back to his bunk. Simmons returned to hers quickly too, and a moment later Ward came out of the kitchen and nearly fell onto the couch next to Skye. He placed his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands and Skye rubbed gentle circles on his back.

"You know that nothing Garrett ever told you was true, right?" she asked quietly after a few minutes of silence.

He lifted his head part way, just enough to look at her with one grey eye.

"Part of me knows that" he murmured. "The reasonable part, the intellectual part of me knows that. But there's a part of me that can't be convinced. That's the part that's the voice in the back of my mind every time I look in the mirror, telling me that I'm a failure. It's the voice that whispers to me every time I kiss you. It tells me that I'm not good enough for you, that I don't deserve you, that I'm going to mess this up and make you hate me again. It's the voice that tells me that I don't even deserve this" he said, holding up his tracker bracelet. "This second chance. It just reminds me how I hurt you. It tells me that you all must hate me. So, even though I'm trying to win everyone's forgiveness, I still can't even forgive myself."

Skye took the hand that wasn't tracing patterns on Grant's back and cupped his chin with it, gently turning his head towards her, although he still wouldn't meet her eyes. "Hey" she whispered. "Look at me." Ward slowly brought his gaze up to meet hers, and only when their eyes met did Skye lean forward to kiss him.

"Don't you ever listen to that voice again" she ordered. "The only voice I want you to hear in your head when you kiss me is mine, telling you how much I love you. Got it?" Ward nodded. He was about to say something more when May walked in.

"Bedtime, Ward" she announced coldly. "Let's go".

Grant sighed and Skye groaned, but neither of them protested. Ward simply kissed his girl goodnight and followed the senior agent off to his cell/bedroom, but not before whispering "it may take a while for it to be the only one I'll hear, but I'm going to make damn sure it's the only one I listen to from now on" in Skye's ear. She smiled as she watched him walk off, and nearly floated off back to her bunk when he was out of sight.

**AN: Please review guys! My life is crazy right now but reviews remind me that there are actually people who care what I'm writing, and motivates me to find the time to write more! 3**


	8. Leaf

**AN: YAY! I'm still alive! This weekend has been busy with work, but that's why I have chapters in reserve and don't necessarily post them as soon as I write them! I hope you all enjoy chapter 8, _Leaf_.**

At 6:45 the next morning, Coulson's voice over the bus's intercom woke Skye up. "New mission, Gang. Briefing in ten". Skye groaned as she rolled out of bed and threw on some sweatpants and a t-shirt. She tied her hair up in a bun as she was walking to the bathroom to brush her teeth. When that was done she grabbed a slice of toast from the kitchen and went to meet the rest of the team in the briefing room.

May and FitzSimmons were already there. Coulson showed up a moment later with Ward. Skye hadn't been sure if Ward would still be included in the team or not, but was glad to see that he was. As soon as he walked in, Coulson pulled up a blurry image of a large, weird looking animal on the screen and began.

"There have been reports along the west coast of large creatures coming out of the ocean and moving into the mainland. So far they've been avoiding urban areas, but we're being sent to deal with it anyways. These types of creatures have never been documented thus far in history; their origins are unknown and whether they're from our planet or not, the question of why they're now changing their environment remains. That's what we're going to figure out.

"May has already set course for the location of the most recent sighting. We should be there in about two and a half hours, so be ready to go when we touch down. Skye, May, you're going to go for a hike. There've been some reported sightings, see if you can find any trace of these things in the woods. Fitz and Simmons, you're going to the beach where these things have been coming out. I want to know if there's anything in that water that shouldn't be. Ward and I will stay here and dig into old S.H.E.I.L.D. files, see if we can find anything that will give us a better idea of what we're dealing with. Everyone clear?" The team nodded. "Good. Dismissed."

As soon as Coulson gave them permission to leave, the team went off in their separate directions. Jemma and Leo took off for the lab, blabbering on about plans for their neurotoxin, while May followed them down the stairs. Coulson went into his office and Skye caught Ward's eye, about to ask what he wanted to do, but he just shook his head and so she shrugged and went into her bunk, pulled out her laptop, and started doing some research on animals indigenous to the area that she and Mel would be searching later.

With his forehead crinkled, Ward grabbed some paper and a pen from the desk in the lounge, and took it back to his cell. He sat down at the table and started writing.

_You knocked me down. You beat me while I was there. You lorded over me like a master to a slave, and you broke me in ways that may never be fixed._

_You took advantage of a lost boy with no hope. You twisted me into something of your own design. You made me into someone I loathe, and I will not let it define me._

_I am starting over. I don't want to be that person any more. I'm shedding my skin to make way for the new man that I am going to become. I've been called a man before, but today I become one, because today I make my own choices. I chose to forgive myself. I chose to let go of the resentment I feel because it will not serve me. I will only let good into my life. I will purge myself of this darkness that you have infused me with. Despite all you efforts, I am going to become a man that I can be proud of. All my life I have been a victim, but that stops today. All my life I have been someone's property, but that stops today. Today, I become my own._

The letter wasn't addressed, but it didn't need to be. Grant had written it to more than just one person. When he finished, he set down the pen and took the paper into the kitchen. He quickly pulled the battery out of the smoke detector, found a box of matches in one of the drawers, lit one and set the paper on fire in the sink. When the paper was just a pile of ash, he turned on the tap to wash it down the drain, turned on the vent fan over the stove to clear out the residual smoke, replaced the battery and left. With that off his chest, he didn't look back. Instead, he went straight to Skye's bunk and was inches away from walking right in when he stopped, remembering the rules that came with his bracelet.

"Skye" he called. "Come here."

She looked up. "What? Why?"

"Because, if I come in there then I'm gonna get iced."

Skye laughed but climbed off the bed and walked over to him anyways. She stopped, just outside of his grasp for a moment to tease him and he audibly growled at her, causing her to hurry up a bit. The second that she was within his reach, Ward grabbed her and pulled her towards him, pinning her against the wall and kissing her. She was surprised at first, but met him with enthusiasm. They both forgot themselves for a moment and started moving into her room (since it just happened to be the location of the nearest bed), but as soon as he stepped through the doorway Ward's bracelet started beeping rapidly and he hurriedly stepped back out into the hall, which made it stop. Skye laughed but followed him back out.

"Not that I mind," she purred into his ear as they both allowed their hands to roam the other's body, "but what was that for?"

"I'm turning over a new leaf" Grant started to explain. "I'm remaking myself. And the one thing I know, beyond a doubt, that needs to be part of this new me, is you. Because I'm better when I'm with you."

Skye blushed. "Is the new you a softie too?" she asked.

"Sometimes, yes" he replied, "but seeing as how I'm not allowed in your room, how about we squeeze into that broom closet? Cause I'm not feeling too soft right now." He winked at her and she gasped and giggled, before shooting him a coy gaze and leading the way to the aforementioned spot.

**AN: Thanks for reading! And I swear to Thor (get it? Cause he's a God? LMAO! i think im funnier than i am :P ), Reviews DO make me post faster! Like, seriously! They also make me write faster and better, which helps me post faster... So please, drop me a review! Let me know that I should keep doing what I'm doing! Because I'm doing this for you, so it's nice to get some feedback in return! Makes it feel like less of a tragic cry into the void... Anyways, yeah! Thanks! Review! Mwah! 3**


	9. Hike

**AN: So, I'm not Marvel. I don't have the heart to torture everyone with an uber long hiatus. These past couple days have been long enough, right? And, you know, I'm a human. A very very busy human. I worked 11 hours today, and OMT it sucked. But anyways, I finally have a bit of motivation so I'm writing again for the first time in days, and so I figured I would update for you guys! We're getting off the bus a bit in this chapter, so enjoy _Hike_!**

"Wheels down in ten" May announced over the PA. Ward groaned but he and Skye emerged from the closet less than 2 minutes later anyways. Skye slapped Grant's butt playfully as she walked past him, disappearing into her bunk a moment later. When she emerged as the bus touched down, she was wearing stretchy black skinny jeans over a pair of combat boots and a black, form fitting tee shirt. Her hair (which had been in disarray a moment ago, from her stint in the broom cupboard) was pulled into a tight ponytail and she wore a pair of mirrored sunglasses that obscured her eyes. She truly looked like an agent.

As soon as the plane was shut down, May came and found her.

"Let's move, _Tian_" May ordered. Skye was puzzled, but quickly grabbed her laptop bag and followed after her. When they were in the jeep on their way to the forest they were going to search, Skye brought it up.

"What did you call me back there?" she asked as May drove.

"_Tian_" she answered. "It means sky, but it's also the word for heaven. I thought it suited you, partly because of your name, but also because of what I see in you. You have a presence that's almost ethereal. Cosmic. Like you're greater than this world."

"I love it" Skye grinned as her cheeks reddened. Mel gave a small, barely-there smile before putting on her own sunglasses and pressing down the accelerator.

The arrived at the trail head about 20 minutes later. There was a "Trail Closed" sign blocking off the entrance, but May and Skye quickly climbed over it. Skye had left her laptop bag in the jeep; instead, she and Mel both wore backpacks filled with power food and water bottles. The trail was wide enough to walk side by side at first but eventually narrowed down, forcing them to walk single file. May indicated that Skye should go first, so she did. After a couple minutes of walking in silence, Skye brought up a question she'd been meaning to ask.

"Hey May? Where'd you get that badass outfit? Like, that thing is leather and yet you still have full mobility in it, it seems to breathe pretty well, and you look killer in it! I want one! I know that S.H.I.E.L.D technically doesn't exist anymore and stuff, but can I still get one of those suits?" There was no answer. "May?" Skye turned around and found the trail behind her empty. Instantly her demeanor changed and she pulled her night-night pistol out from the back of her pants. Holding it at the ready, she walked back down the trail in the direction she'd come from. The ground was fairly dry, but she was still able to make out her own footprints in the dirt. It didn't take long for her to reach the spot where another pair of footsteps that had been alongside her own veered off the path and into the woods. There were a few scuff marks around too, and Skye peered into the trees cautiously. All of a sudden, something crashed into her, knocking the wind out of her lungs and causing her to fall to the ground. She was only down for a moment before rolling over to aim her weapon at the offender. As soon as she registered who it was, she huffed and clicked the safety back on the gun.

"It took you nearly five minutes to notice I was gone, Skye" May lectured. "And even when you did, when you were on your guard, you still didn't expand your awareness. You must always-"

"Be aware of my surroundings." Skye finished May's sentence for her, overlapping her words over the older woman's.

"Yes."

Skye opened her mouth to reply, to tell her trainer that she _had_ been paying attention to her surroundings and that it wasn't _her_ fault that May was incredibly sneaky, but May's hand on her mouth cut her off.

"Listen" Melinda breathed. Skye rolled her eyes but did as she was told. It took a moment for her to hear the nearly imperceptible sound, but when she did she realized what had Mel so freaked out. It was far off, but getting closer every moment- the sound of several very large _things_ moving towards them. Once May pointed it out, Skye was actually surprised that she hadn't noticed it sooner. The creatures were not being quiet by any means, and it was only the distance that had kept the sound of their travel from Skye's ears.

"What do we do?" she mumbled around Melinda's hand. May quickly removed the appendage and motioned with her hand that Skye should follow her. They hurried down the path for a couple minutes before May called a halt. The noise was louder now, the sound would have been impossible to miss even if Skye hadn't already been savvy to it. Mel proceeded to lead the way off the path… The two female agents crept through the trees, with Skye walking but inches behind May. She nearly bumped into the older woman when May suddenly stopped and grabbed Skye's arm to pull her down to a crouch. They hid in a bush and a moment later the subjects came into view.

The creatures were massive, each one well over 15 feet tall. They were lanky creatures, and every inch of their dark, armor-like skin was covered in sharp edges. Although they didn't move stealthily by any means, all four of them were graceful and fluid. Each movement they made was clearly deliberate, from the steps they took down to the blink of one of their piercing violet eyes.

Skye's breath started coming in shallower gasps, but Mel laid a gentle hand on her knee and the girl settled down. The hand that wasn't offering moral support was occupied with a small gadget. It bore some resemblance to a digital camera, but had too many extra bits to be that. Unfortunately Skye was too busy trying to keep breathing to worry about figuring it out. When the creatures were out of sight, May stood back up and led the way back to the jeep.

"We're not going to stop them?" Skye asked after a few minutes of walking in stunned silence.

"Why should we?" May replied. "They aren't moving towards civilization, and how would we even go about stopping them in the first place? I doubt that night-night gun would do much on one of those. No, this was a recon mission. We got what we were looking for" she said as she held up the device she'd been using earlier.

"Yeah, what is that thing?"

"No clue. Fitz just told me to point it at the creatures and press this button. It probably collects biological data and other specs or something. I don't worry what it does, I just do as I'm told with tech like this."

By that time they had reached the Jeep so Skye just shook her head and climbed into the passenger seat.

**AN: So you know what I'm going to say. Reviews- I like them. And I'm not going to hold the next chapter hostage like I did the first couple chapters, but ****I promise that if I get 15 reviews I will update within 24 hours of the 15th review. B****ecause I am so busy it's harder for me to update, so I need encouragement to push myself to post! Reviews are really the only way I know how much this means to you, and that is the thing that keeps me going, even when I'd rather just fall into bed and collapse at the end of the day. So yeah. Anyways, wish me luck this week, cause work is going to be INSANE for a couple days. Love you guys! 3**


	10. Beach

**AN: Hey all! Sorry it's been forever since I've updated! I'm trying to kick my butt into gear with writing, but it's hard to motivate myself! Anyways, life is good... Lots of work, but I had the other day off and wound up getting my full driver's license, so that's pretty cool, and I went to a museum exhibit opening tonight, also cool... Anyways, I need to write, you need to read, here is the chapter, _Beach_.**

When Leo and Jemma arrived at the beach, they immediately set up a large black tent in which to set up their mobile lab. It took about half an hour just to get everything set up, but the tent had the added advantage of protecting them from the sun (which was good, since they both got sunburned very easily). Once all their equipment was in place, they set about collecting samples of the water. Jemma got a few samples from the shoreline and began testing it immediately, while Fitz went out in a small motor boat and brought back some jugs of water from about 750 yards out. When he brought back the samples, Jemma jumped on them and quickly grabbed a vial of the liquid which she immediately placed in the mass spectrometer and ran tests on.

"I need to see if these samples match those that I took from the shoreline" she cried. "I found abnormally high levels of carbon in the water. And I _mean_ abnormally high. I mean, these quantities are literally off the charts! And seeing as how the majority of life forms are carbon based-"

"-the carbon levels could be a result of whatever's changing the creature's behaviors! We still have to figure out what's causing the levels to rise but-"

"-if we take samples from multiple sources in the area then we can-"

"-analyze the varying carbon densities to pinpoint a central location!"

Jemma laughed triumphantly. "Yes! Now you GPS tagged the location of the sample you just got, yes?" Fitz nodded. "Good. Then why don't you go out and fetch some more samples from the area. Try and spread them out a bit, but do it systematically. And make quite sure that you get the co-ordinates for all of them and keep them straight!"

"I know, I know!" Fitz retorted as he backed out of the tent. Simmons smiled at her friend's antics as he left, and then turned back to her work a moment later. She started running some more detailed tests on the samples. The sample from the deeper water had proven to contain an even higher level of carbon than the shoreline sample had, but she had expected that.

What she didn't expect was for the seismograph (which came standard in all S.H.E.I.L.D. mobile lab units) to start going off about a quarter hour after Fitz left. The readings started out small, but as they grew she looked out at the ocean and saw a large cloud forming overhead. She could see Leo's boat out on the waves, but he was moving still farther away. Biting her lip, Simmons pulled out her phone and called her partner.

'_The customer you are trying to reach is not in service. Please hang up and try the number again' _the voice on the other end of the line chimed. Jemma groaned but shoved her phone back in her pocket and went back in the tent to keep an eye on the device. Wind was starting to buffer the sides of the tent now, and she hoped that Fitz would have the sense to come back to shore soon. She tried his phone again but received the same message.

The seismograph was beeping louder and louder every minute, but she forced herself to ignore it as she looked over the results from the mass spectrometer. Besides the carbon which had immediately drawn her eye, the water contained other irregularities as well. A slightly elevated presence of iron atoms, and more osmium than normal… there was even a slight presence of an unidentifiable compound! Simmons couldn't believe that she had missed that the first time, but the quantities were so slight that she hadn't even looked that far down the list before. Still, it was bizarre.

Finally she couldn't ignore the incessant beeping of the machine anymore. She looked out and could easily see the effect that the shaking was having on the water; some of the waves were nearly her height, and the entire sky had gone dark. Fortunately, she also saw Fitz driving the boat back to shore as fast as he could. With that in mind, she began packing up the lab and loading the equipment back into their SUV- she wanted to get off that beach the moment that Fitz was back on it.

She had very nearly packed everything up when he got there. They loaded the last of the things into the trunk and took off. They had left just in time, because as they drove off they looked in the rear view mirror and could see an enormous wave crashing onto the beach, obliterating the spot where their base had been. Something was rising out of the depths of the water, but it was so far out that they couldn't see any detail on it. The two scientists silently agreed that neither of them had any desire to get close enough to examine the thing at that moment in time, so Jemma simply floored the gas pedal and drove as fast as she could to get back to the Bus.

Meanwhile, back at the bus, Coulson and Ward were both chugging coffee. The files they were sorting through were pretty dull, and the fact that neither of them knew how to operate the holotable beyond the essential basics (which FitzSimmons had taught them after their last incident with the infernal thing) wasn't helping much either.

Finally, after his fifth cup of coffee, Ward pulled up a new file and started skimming through it. At first it seemed like nothing, but then a picture caught his eye.

"Hey Coulson, can you bring up the picture we have of these things again?" Ward asked.

Coulson nodded and pulled up the image, while Ward sent his file over to the main screen and pulled up the picture that he had found. While the two images were clearly of different creatures, there were a lot of similar traits between them. Their overall form was the first thing that jumped out. Both species were tall and thin, and had similar proportions.

"Look at their skin" Coulson pointed out, zooming in on the pictures.

"It's… barbed."

They went on, finding more and more similarities for several more minutes.

"So, these things that we have now… They're somehow related to frost giants?" Coulson mused. That was, after all, what the file that Ward had pulled was about.

"I guess so, sir. I mean, there are clearly a lot of differences, but I'd say that that's the closest thing we've got so far."

"Damn, I didn't even know they'd been to Earth before. I mean, I knew of them, but not that they'd actually been here…"

"This file was clearance level 9, back when S.H.E.I.L.D. and clearance levels still existed…"

Coulson chuckled, but was cut off as FitzSimmons ran in and pulled up satellite footage on the monitor while yelling at one another and at him and Ward. Coulson was about to tell them to calm down, but the words died in his throat as he saw what exactly they were going on about.

The four of them stared in silent awe as not one but two of the creatures made their way out of the massive waves and vanished into the nearby woods.

**AN: Please Please Please _review_! Whenever I get an email saying that I have a review, it reminds me to write more and when I finish writing a new chapter I always post a new chapter so reminding me to write is a good thing! And giving me ideas is a good thing! I've actually just started writing a plot element based off of a review I got back on chapter 1 or 2, so it does make an impact! And it gives me warm fuzzies inside :) Anyways, Mwah! 3**


	11. Debrief

**AN: Hola! Look, a chapter! Yay, I did a thing! I would normally write more for you here, but I am so so so tired, so I'm not going to ramble. You know what to do!**

When Skye and Melinda arrived back at the plane, they found the team in varying states of chaos. Ward was sitting at the kitchen table with a cord of rope which he was aggressively tying special knots into. Coulson was pacing back and forth in front of FitzSimmons, who were loudly arguing about the impossibility of some science crap or whatever. May assessed the room quickly and then walked up to Fitz (pushing past Coulson to do so) and handed him the camera device thing that Skye had seen her using earlier. The pair quickly shut up and stared at it for a moment before taking off and running down to the lab. Coulson just gave May a look and walked away, leading her into his office.

Now that everyone else had left, Skye went and sat across from Ward.

"What's this?" she asked, playfully tugging at one end of the rope.

"Normally when I'm worried about something, I clean my guns," he admitted sheepishly, "but since that's not an option right now I figured that this would be a good alternative. It's not really helping."

Skye gently took the cord from his hands. "Agent_ I-can-take-out-an-army-of-villains-with-my-pinky_ Ward is worried? Isn't this kind of thing basically just every day, run of the mill stuff for S.H.E.I.L.D.?"

"Yeah, it is. For _S.H.E.I.L.D_." he emphasized. "Normally when something of this scale goes down, we have backup. We have dozens of scientists figuring out tech that will work against these things, and we have hundreds of agents ready to go in, no matter the cost. But now we have two seasoned agents, one rookie, two science officers and one criminal who can't even have a gun. I just don't see how six people can deal with something this big!"

"Who says we have to?" Skye asked. "Yeah, S.H.E.I.L.D. is technically gone. But you don't think we could call half of those agents back in a heartbeat? My guess is that you're going to have to deal with that comment you made to Maria about Black Widow before all this is over."

Ward laughed nervously. "Yeah, that probably wasn't a smart thing to say, in hindsight."

"Damn straight. Anyways, I'd imagine AC is briefing Mel on everything that's happened so far, and it looks like FitzSimmons are also in the loop, so you wanna fill me in?"

"Only if you return the favour" he replied.

"Fair enough. Mel and I saw them. Four of them. These things are massive, Grant, and their body is basically a weapon in and of itself. Mel got some specs on them I think, with the thingamabob she gave to Fitz…

"God it was terrifying though. I mean, I saw the pictures before we went but to actually see these creatures, live…" Skye's eyes were vacant as she stared into space, her forehead crinkling slightly at the thought. Ward reached over and took one of her hands in both of his.

"Hey, stay here, with me. Fear will destroy you more than those creatures ever could. Yes, there is some weird crap out there, but we _do_ have the power to take care of it."

"With great power comes a ton of weird crap that you are not ready to deal with" Skye laughed under her breath.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just some advice I gave someone once… Guess I should have listened too."

"You're scared. I get it. I've been freaked out by a mission before to. But just keep in mind, you're here for a reason. You're here because you _can_ do this. So don't let that fear and self-doubt grip you; have faith in yourself."

"That's why you clean your guns, isn't it? To do something that you can control, to prove to yourself that you're still in charge of the situation?"

Grant grinned a bit. "Yeah, I guess it is."

"Would going down to the training room with me help?"

"Knowing that you'll be a bit safer? That will always help."

They walked towards the stairs but just as they were passing by the lab Simmons's voice came over the PA. "You lot will want to come see this!" she cried.

Skye rolled her eyes but turned into the lab anyways. She looked confused when Ward let go of her hand and stood just outside the doorway, but he held up his wrist to remind her again of the continued stipulations on his second chance. When Coulson came down a moment later, he pulled out his phone and pressed a few buttons.

"You can come in now, Ward."

Grant followed Phil and joined the rest of the team around the holotable. Simmons was practically bursting as she waited for everyone to file in. When they were all there, she began by pulling up a projection of a strand of DNA.

"This is from the data that the scope pulled" Simmons explained, gesturing to the device that May had used earlier. "One of the things the scope reads is DNA. Brilliant technology, really… Anyways, yes. This is the creature's DNA. And this" she said, pulling up a second strand, is a strand of the DNA found in a human. Now, at first glance they are actually very similar. In fact, I had to double check that the scope had read it correctly, but it did. Then I looked closer and discovered that the nucleotides had been rearranged!" She looked around at all the blank faces and simplified things a bit. "Basically, the proteins, or nucleotides, in a strand of DNA are arranged in a certain way, and that arrangement dictates how the cells will form. There are other differences that one can expect to see between plant and animal cells too; the number of chromosomes, the size of the genomes, I could go on. But essentially, these creatures have the DNA of a human, with rearrangement in the nucleotides which bring it to a plant like state!

"Now, these are the results we got back from the samples in the water" she continued as she pulled up the aforementioned data. "Notice the elevated levels of carbon; Carbon is an element that is found in high concentrations in organic matter, but in even higher levels in plants than in humans. While bodies of water often do have a certain level of carbon in them, this quantity is far outside of the norm. And there's also this little guy" she said, bringing up a model of the compound she hadn't been able to identify earlier. "It's not from our planet, which is why the mass spectrometer wasn't able to figure out what it was, but once I got it back here the S.H.E.I.L.D. database had some insight.

"It's from Mars, sir. Our British counterpart, U.N.I.T, entered it into the international database some time ago. From what I understand of the file, there was an incident on the planet. The water there had its own life force, was able to mutate human subjects. It would appear that a small amount of that water, perhaps no more than a single drop, was introduced into our water system. Now, because the compound is so diluted here, it was unable to act in the same manner as it did up there, but it's reproduced and is growing stronger."

"So what's your theory then?" Coulson asked.

Simmons bit her lip for a moment before answering grimly. "I'm afraid that the creatures we're dealing with used to be humans, sir. I believe that the combination of factors here are affecting the bodies of previously drowned victims. It's not strong enough to transform living bodies, but I mean, there are hundreds of people who have drowned over the past century… I think that the Martian compound has reanimated them, while taking in influence from the carbon which gives them their strong and spiked skin; my guess would be that their skin is a lot like tree bark. The presence of both variables was stronger the farther out to sea we went, so it makes sense that that is where the transformations are happening."

"So you're saying these things are people?" Skye exclaimed.

"Not exactly… Corpses, really" Simmons mumbled.

"So they're not related to frost giants at all?" May asked.

Simmons shook her head. "The similarities seem to be almost completely superficial. The shared traits indicate the possibility that the martian water that's causing the disturbance shares an ancient origin with Jotunheim, but as all cells do it's mutated significantly since then, and there are nearly no structural similarities that remain between this compound and any Jotunheimian artifacts that we have."

"How do we take them out?" Ward interjected.

"Well, that's the thing. See, U.N.I.T never really found a cure to this issue back then, they just abandoned planet. So I don't know if there's any way to reverse the transformation… It might be possible to come up with a way of putting them down, but we haven't found it yet."

"Keep trying" Coulson replied tersely as he left. Simmons nodded briskly, but leaned tiredly against one of the tables as soon as everyone but Fitz had left.

**AN: And before you all start asking, YES, that was a Doctor Who reference, NO, this is not going to become a crossover. It just so happened that DW had a piece of info in it that I thought was useful for my plot, so I am using it a bit here but none of the characters from DW are going to be showing up. I'm JUST stealing the science.**

**Anyways, Reviews make me happy, work makes me tired, you guys are great, and I will do my best to keep writing for you! XOXO**


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